Centrifugal compressors are frequently packaged in multiple stages using a common drive including associated controls. One type of control involved throttling the suction to the initial stage so as to match the output of the compressor to the system demands. Doing this avoids the cost of energy to power the compressor units at output levels not required from the system. The nature of the performance curve of centrifugal compressors is that their output flow and pressure are related and can be varied by a throttling assembly typically mounted at the suction to the first stage. These throttling assemblies have been designed in the past using a series of blades that rotate 90 degrees between the open and closed position. Typically each blade has a pair of end shafts that extend out of the inlet piping going to the first stage. Each such shaft extension through the piping system was provided with a shaft seal and a purge system. The purpose of the purge system was to keep gasses from escaping these shaft seals particularly in applications where inlet pressures in a particular system ran normally at elevated pressures that were raised to an even higher pressure by the compressor system. The purge system served a purpose of avoiding sucking in surrounding air in some systems. In conditions of high turndown when the blades are operating close to the fully closed position, it was possible for the compressor to draw the pressure down to negative values. In those cases, in order to avoid drawing air into the process gas being compressed, the process gas was hooked to the purge system. If a negative pressure situation occurred, the process gas would be sucked in around shaft seals located at each end of each blade. Depending on the inlet piping size, there could be several blades rotating in tandem with each one having a connection to the purge system.
The blades each had a dedicated linkage typically connected to a rotating ring that was turned by an actuator, typically operated by pneumatic pressure.
The problems with the prior design were numerous. As mentioned above there was the concern of leakage at every shaft seal of every blade and the need to hook up a purge system to each potentially leaking seal. The present invention eliminates the concerns of the previous designs by enclosing the inlet pipe with the blades inside in a surrounding housing. In this approach the leakage at blade shaft seals becomes irrelevant as a surrounding housing contains the process gas. The design further extends a balanced driving piston that is powered by the external pneumatic actuator into the interior of the housing. Balancing the piston reduces actuator output requirements be eliminating internal housing pressure as a load on the drive stem. Multiple seals are available on the drive stem penetrations of the housing to further enhance reliable operation. One or more internal passages remain open between the upstream and downstream sections of the housing on either side of the blades. Thus, when high turndowns with nearly closed blades bring the downstream pressure down to negative values due to continuing compressor operation, the passages serve an equalization function to avoid sucking air into the housing. These and other features of the present invention will be more readily understood from a review of the description and drawings of the preferred embodiment and the claims, which appear below.